The states of Iowa and Nebraska are suing the Environmental Protection Agency. The attorneys general for the two states are accusing federal regulators of illegally delaying year-round sales of gas with a higher blend of 15 percent ethanol.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird sayid Iowans are done waiting for permanent access to E15 in the summer months.
“We sent a notice to the EPA that we were going to sue them and that was signed by Nebraska and Iowa, so we’re working together on that one,” Bird said of the letter sent to the EPA March 6, 2023.
In 2022, Governor Reynolds and the governors of six other Midwest states asked the EPA to allow E15 sales in their states this summer and beyond. “They haven’t done a thing,” Bird told reporters this past Saturday. “They’re dragging their feet and so we’re going to take them to court and we’re going to get year round E15.”
The EPA has restricted sales of E15 in the summer months, citing concerns about air pollution. Last year, however, E15 sales were allowed during the summer months as a way to give consumers a cheaper fuel alternative after gas prices rose after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The EPA has granted a waiver that starts next summer that will allow year-round sales of E15 in Iowa and six other states, but Bird said that’s not good enough.
“The law says that if a governor notifies the EPA that they’d like to have year-round E15 that that has to happen within 90 days,” Bird said. “Governor Reynolds notified the EPA…well over a year ago.”
In a written statement, Reynolds said the EPA is “showing its disdain” towards “clean, renewable, American-produced ethanol.”